Plasmodium falciparum

Mefloquine was evaluated as an alternative for intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy (IPTp) due to increasing resistance against the first-line drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). This study determined the pharmacokinetic characteristics of the mefloquine stereoisomers and the metabolite carboxymefloquine (CMQ) when given as IPTp in pregnant women.

Toxoplasma gondii and related human parasites contain an essential plastid organelle called the apicoplast. Clinically used antibiotics and other inhibitors that disrupt apicoplast biogenesis cause a mysterious “delayed-death” phenotype in which parasite growth is unaffected during the first lytic cycle of inhibitor treatment but is severely inhibited in the second...

Resistance to piperaquine has been associated with the amplification of the plasmepsin II gene in Cambodia. None of the 175 African isolates that we analyzed had plasmepsin II gene amplification (piperaquine 50% inhibitory concentration ranged from 0.94 to 137.5 nM), suggesting there is a low prevalence of piperaquine reduced susceptibility in Africa.

The emergence of resistance toward artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum has the potential to severely compromise malaria control. Therefore, the development of new artemisinins in combination with new drugs that impart activities toward both intraerythrocytic proliferative asexual and transmissible gametocyte stages,...

Hsp90 inhibitors, well studied in the laboratory and clinic for antitumor indications, have promising activity against protozoan pathogens, including Trypanosoma brucei which causes African sleeping sickness, and the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. To progress these experimental drugs...